John,
Let's throw some interesting conflicts of information about Pebbleford out on the table. When I worked at United Distillers, the trademark file for Pebbleford never once mentioned a Beam. Schenley was very good at researching their brand names and trademarks but did not once mention the Beam name in relationship to Pebbleford. I also was asked once by Booker Noe what I knew about Pebbleford because he did not have any information about this brand and its "Beam Heritage". I have since looked at everything I find to see if Pebbleford has a relationship with the Beams and the only information I find is recent information put out by Beam. The only old tie I have seen is that at Clermont they have a bottle of Pebbleford bottled toward the end of prohibition. Of course it is bottled in bond and on the back label it names the producer of the whiskey in the bottle and that distiollery is Beam. Now this really does not proove anything because by the end of prohibition brands were kept alive by putting any whiskey they could get into the bottle and in this case it may have simply been Beam whiskey put into a Pebbleford bottle.

I would like to see some pre-prohibition advertising linking Pebbleford with a Beam.

Mike, the Beam link came from Sam Cecil's book, which we know has some information known to be either wrong or at least questionable. However, what he gives seems pretty detailed and corroborates with information from other sources, including the Pebbleford brand.

On page 129 (second edition) Sam describes the Clear Springs Distillery Co. as a reorganization of Beam & Hart, with James B. Beam as president. Co-owners were Thomas C. Dennehy and J.S. Kenny, both of Chicago. They continued producing "Old Tub", Beam & Hart's brand, and added "Clear Springs" and "Pebbleford".

All that was in 1895, long before Prohibition. After repeal, the Clear Springs Corp. was acquired by another Chicagoan, Walter Brown, who operated as a tenant lessee of T.W. Samuels, producing "Pebbleford" and "Old Underoof" blended whiskey at the distillery through the thirties. Cecil even notes that "Pebbleford" had the distinction of being among the few bourbons packaged in 4/5 qt bottles rather than the more common quart size. There is a photo of a mini-bottle of "Dennehy's Old Underoof" at http://www.minivodkaguy.com/Pre-Pro1.html, along with a bunch of other fascinating old whiskey miniatures.

I was also able to find a URL for the University of Iowa Library Special Collections that you'd probably be better able to access than I.

The link is
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/Msc/ToMsc250/MsC202/MsC202.htm and other information follows. What they have, as part of the John Springer printing ephemera collection (publicly accessible) are two c.1915 pint-bottle labels for Pebbleford Kentucky Bourbon from Clear Springs Distilling Co., Bardstown, Nelson County.

John,
Burgin is in Kentucky and was the location of one of the many small distilleries Schenley owned. The whiskey from this bottle is from Schenley's vast stores of whiskey it acquired as it acquired distilleries during the war.

John,
I have a copy of trademarks registered with Mida's Criteria dating from about 1900. D M Beam registers "Old Tub", but "Pebbleford" is not registered at all. If D M Beam made this whiskey, Why did he not register the trade mark? Was the brand created after 1900? I have never seen anything from Pebbleford from before prohibition. The Iowa archive material is interesting but I did not see a photograph of the bottle and labels. I have a feeling it is prohibition era material with the whiskey made in 1915 and bottled in the 20's.

Mike,
Very possible. The only "definitive" support I found was Sam Cecil's, and as we know, that's only definitive if you can find someone else to corroborate it.

Still, if the name was used for a medicinal whiskey then there is at least some reason to suspect it was a known brand prior to 1920.
After all, they certainly had enough brands to chose from that they didn't need to make any up I'd like to see one of those labels.

John,
I agree that Pebbleford was probably sold before prohibition, but I havd never seen a bottle or advertising for the brand during that period. I would like to see some advertising or a bottle from that period that states who distilled it. It may well be a Beam, but maybe not.

Throughout this discussion I keep having a recurring memory of a Pebble Ford (or something-Ford) distillery that was outside of Frankfort, in the vicinity of Stamping Ground. I can even picture in my mind the ford itself from which the name was taken, which is still there on the "old road" even though there is now a bridge on the "new road."

What I'm inclined to think is that there were two Pebblefords (or one Pebbleford and a Pebble-Ford, or something). One was basically a Nelson county whiskey and the other may have been a Kenton or Anderson (or Franklin) county whiskey. The second ended up as a Schenley product and the first... well, who knows?

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that both of these were "me too" brands that were riding the (at least regional) fame of a whiskey made where Chuck remembers. Sort of like Old Joe or Old Tyme.

Chuck - That's the one I referred to above. I was able to find an example of "Old Underfoot" (!!), and a reference to samples of labels from Clear Springs' Pebbleford (which is almost certainly the one Booker Noe asked Mike Veach about), but Mike wasn't able to get a photo of the labels, so he can't really comment on them.

Mike - The reason you don't see Pebbleford registered to David M. Beam is that it probably never was. The photo at the URL in my post shows that the Old Underfoot brand was associated with Dennehy, who was a co-owner of Clear Springs prior to prohibition. James B. Beam was listed as president and that would have been the only actual "Beam" connection. But the whiskey was distilled (then) at the Beam-Hart distillery, and from that comes the idea of it being a Beam whiskey (which it probably was; it's doubtful they made an entirely different product for Clear Springs). Dennehy (with or without Kenny) probably owned both brands and sold them, along with the business, to Walter Brown after repeal. That's when it moved its operations to T. W. Samuels. I don't know if Beam still was involved then, but Clear Springs was apparently purchased by Beam at some point.

Interestingly, it is still registered as an active assumed-name corporation of Jim Beam Brands.

Okay, a little more snooping around the Kentucky Secretary of State’s records and I’ve found some additional information that might be helpful.
At least I hope it's helpful to Mike, who will most likely know some of these folks.

There are (or at least there were, since they're both inactive now) TWO Pebbleford distillery companies.

Maybe.

Mike, here is the Commonwealth's record on Pebbleford Distillers, the company you’re probably familiar with through UD.
They apparently inherited it from Schenley.
This Pebbleford would be my guess as the one using whiskey from Kenton, Frankfort, Anderson, and other counties.

And here is the record on Pebbleford Distillery Company.
I’m guessing (with one severe reservation) that this is the OTHER one, which at one time was associated with Clear Spring.
The reservation is that (1) there is no reference at all to Beam or Samuels (unless Cave Spring relates to Clear Spring somehow), and (2) the dates give the appearance of a single sequence, from 1935 until the registration expires in 1985, then from 1988 to 2003. It would certainly be more convincing if the dates overlapped.
This may have been the same company and not two separate ones.

Anyway, Mike, perhaps you know one or more of these people?
Who are these Mayer brothers?
(Was Oscar one of them... or is that just bologna?)
And what is (was) the C. T. Corporation System in the Kentucky Home Life Building?

The actual producer of a distilled spirits product has to have a registered DBA identifying itself with that corporate name, even if the brand is actually owned by a customer, i.e., a distributor, and produced under contract, which is why some DBAs may be registered to a particular producer who didn't necessarily own the trademark although, as John points out, Dennehy seems to have had a direct ownership interest in at least one distillery.

Remember too that the current system is part of the post-prohibition required three-tier system. Prior to prohibition, distributors could and did own interests in distilleries or own them outright.

Note from the bottle shot that, at least in this iteration, Old Underoof was a blend. Interesting bottle, since it has to be pre-prohibition but post Taft decision.

I can't imagine what the name "Old Underoof" means, but maybe the advertising art below will give us a clue.

The The Inland and American printer and lithographer, Volume 22, (1899) mentions that the advertising for Old Underoof whiskey is getting attention by using current events (such as the arrival of the new Japanese Minister Jutaro Kumora in Chicago).

The Library of advertising, Volume 4 (1911), Axel Petrus Johnson, mentions Wilson's "Old Underoof". They're mentioning that metal lithography is very common with big national brands such as Coca-Cola, the brewer's Pabst, and a dozen distillers products such as the Old Underoof.

From A directory of names, pennant numbers, and addresses of all members of the ... By Ship Masters' Association of the Great Lakes (1904) we have the address given of the Chas. Dennehy & Company as 216 and 218 Randolph Street, Chicago. (With long distance telephone main 2077).

And please do not forget that "it is not wise economy to save "the slight difference in cost between Old Underoof rye and other whiskies" when you get such superior quality in Old Underoof Rye. As listed in The Chicago medical recorder, Volume 26, Part 1 (1904)

The book The great revolution: a history of the rise and progress of the People's Party (1874) By M. L. Ahern gives a biography of Mr. Dennehy. It states he is a member of the firm Weadly, Dennehy & Cleary, a wholesale liquor house. And a leading member of the People's Party.

And in the book History of Chicago, Volume 3, (1886) there is an extensive section of the brewing and distilling trades, and a brief biography is given. Born in Ireland, came to the US, apparently was in the grocery business in Alabama before moving to Chicago.